How to get into management

Overview

Want to go for your first management job but lack the 'manager' title from your CV? Let Aimee show you how to use the skills you have to apply for that promotion. She'll help to reconcile your skills and package them in a way to get the attention of the hiring manager.

Hi, I’m Aimee Bateman from Careercake.com and in this insight video I’m going to talk to you about how to get into management when you don’t have any management experience.

If you’re at the stage of your career where management roles are getting your attention, you’re getting excited by them, it may be time to start pushing in this direction. However, securing a role in management when you don’t have experience can often deem you unsuitable for the roles which can be a little bit annoying, some recruiters will instantly dismiss your CV because you don’t have the word manager. Or they’ll just ignore your application because you haven’t made it clear enough that you have the right skills.

As hard as it may seem, getting your break into management isn’t always that difficult, because what you can do is quite simple, start by understanding what a manager is, what they do and what their value within that business is. Firstly, you need to understand the characteristics needed, then you must reconcile this with the skills that you have, and lastly, I need you to understand the areas that you may need to get experience in, so to fill those gaps, and strengthen your case. Here are a few traits associated with a good manager.

For instance, managers are usually very good at planning, multitasking, managing conflict within situations, people skills, leadership skills, using their initiative, usually have good communication skills, and they’re normally quite good at budgeting or reporting, they have experience in that area. There are often opportunities for you long term to have a little look at this and how can you possibly gain experience in these areas. There’s other things and the list goes on but ultimately they’re the main things. Now you’ve got an idea of what a good manager has, I want us to maybe have a little look at the ways that you can develop some of these skills, so in this video we’re just going to look at three ways.

One, offer to lead a project. Let’s say that you’re in a marketing department, you could offer to manage the implementation of a new piece of software that’s coming in. There’s lots of measurable stuff you can crack on with there, you most probably won’t need any people or budgeting experience but certainly when it comes to managing a project that would be fabulous for you. You’ll be hitting deadlines, managing communications, being accountable, so all activities associated with a budding manager.

The next thing, you can offer to train some staff. Let’s look at that that example again, so maybe that software is coming in. Maybe you can demonstrate not only your communication skills and ability to implement it, but maybe you can help train people. Ben in the team may take to software really, really well whereas Sarah might need a few more lessons, people a bit like me, so you can adjust your training based on the end user. Again this just shows your people skills and you can understand people.

And then thirdly, go out and get some experience of managing conflict. Conflict isn’t always about people screaming at each other, maybe two of your team members just aren’t really getting along or communicating as well. Maybe there’s a junior member of the team that’s feeling a little bit demotivated because of the way somebody is speaking to them at the moment. Maybe they’re just not gelling well, and its impacting the project of the overall team output. Maybe you can offer to step in and coach or mentor somebody within that environment. There’s loads of ways that you can help to manage conflict. This experience can sometimes be slightly trickier because usually HR can come in and sort it out, but like I said it’s not always screaming and massive conflict situations, maybe it’s just about getting two people to just communicate a little better.

In conclusion there are lots and lots of things that you can do in order to hone your managerial skills, even without the managerial job title. And then when you are doing these things I want you to keep track of them, make notes of them, what was the output, so that you can then draw on these experiences again within applications, CVs, interviews, that kind of thing.

So hopefully that’s added value, and if you want to get any more advice go over to Careercake.com and look at our courses, our other insight videos. Talk to us, we’re all over social media, you can get hold of our email address and let us know what you need help with, do you want some more videos on another topic, let us know! Talk to us! Let us know about your journey, and good luck.

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Having spent over a decade as a leading recruiter, Aimee has placed over 5000 people into employment, from start-ups to large global firms. She is an award winning careers consultant, speaker and Founder of Careercake.com